Someone to Unroll For
by saudades
Summary: Post-RENT; internal monologue on a rainy New York night.


Title: Someone to Unroll For

Rating: M (which is to say, R)

Summary: Post-RENT; internal monologue on a rainy New York night.

Disclaimer: Characters are the property of the Jonathan Larson estate; the title was inspired by David Grossman's Someone to Run With.

It's quiet tonight—or, rather, it's New-York-quiet: the occasional swish of traffic, the buzz of the streetlight, indecipherable words from the mouths of what sounds like a bunch of kids down the street. I like this kind of quiet a lot. I find it awfully calming, which is pretty funny, coming from a 'burban baby like me. Just built for the city, I guess. Not that you can ever see the stars in this town anyway, but it's super overcast. Rain tonight, I'd say.

Her hands slip around my hips from behind, her thumbs rubbing up and down. I was freaked by this gesture at first, because it's possessive and not possessive and a little bit worshipful and a little bit detached all at the same time. And yet, I don't think that it was the contradictory stuff that wigged me out; it's just that, to have that kind of complex shit going on, you have to be serious about someone, and I was still in denial about wanting anything serious. Like, wasn't that what I was fucking escaping from? Eventually, of course, you sort of settle into an idea like that, you know, a serious kind of thing even when you hadn't planned on one. Or, more specifically, had planned on never having one again. Well, "again" is a bit off, since I was still in…fuck. The mental-babble's back. It all comes from living with someone so damn _precise_. You find yourself fucking debating the terms of the most pointless shit.

Moments of relative quiet are pretty rare in this apartment, so I vow not to screw this one up, and turn silently in her arms. That soft rustle of fabric under her hands, the crazy old lady upstairs starting her nightly sax practice—where are our martinis; this could be a damn movie. Never thought I'd be living out some scratchy Bogart- or Bergman-style black-and-white. A porn, for sure, it felt like a few times. Maybe a Woody Allen flick, depending. Of course, one of Mark's. We're all still living in one of Mark's films. But this isn't his style—I would know.

Comparisons would be useless at this point, you'd think, but I still make them in my head once in a while. Like, women's pillow-talk is a lot better, I gotta say. I try not to play favorites with the whole gender thing, especially seeing as how lots of things, y'know, aren't exactly what they seem at first sight and all, but I think this theory's actually, like, proven. Or could be. Men, they want to talk about how good they feel, or how good they made you feel (or worry about that last bit, that's the fucking worst, like, shut _up_ already), or they fall asleep. But women, I don't know, it's like when they're the softest, when they're the closest to being totally innocent. Guys, too, I guess, but sometimes women get fucking profound. Like sex unlocks some part of them. Especially her. Considering the initial attraction, hormones and alcohol aside, was totally to this idea of stability, it's pretty intense to see the vulnerable parts. To know you're worth showing those parts to. Like, I think all people are like these prickly animals with soft underbellies, and we're all rolled up so tightly most of the time, and when you find somebody you're willing to totally unroll for, even though it means that they could rip your guts out with one chomp…then, that's love. But you have to be willing to keep unrolling, all the way, and not keep a little part rolled up just cause you think it's ugly or might hurt the other person somehow. Took me long enough to learn, but I think that's what makes relationships actually work: that, you know, commitment to unrolling all the way. We talk about that, sometimes, too, in the dark, afterwards.

We've been standing here, just rubbing noses and cheeks and necks for a few minutes, when I hear the soft patter of rain against the window. Am I good, or what? Just like a script. I can hear Mark's voice in my head—pan left, close on the shadowy figures of two women, the start of a slow dance in a dark apartment, while rain taps gently at the panes of glass. Shit. Signs you've known someone too long, you know? Or not _too_ long, but so long that you sort of understand what makes them tick. I think one day Mark will find somebody he's ready to unroll all the way for—his own, what are they called, armadillo. Just like I found mine. I think it makes it easier to start trusting other people more. Or maybe sometimes, like for Mark, you have to start trusting other people first, like practice, before you can expose yourself the whole way. I'm not sure. Maybe it's all a matter of timing—not to mention fucking circumstance, which he and I didn't have the best of—this armadillo thing, or compatibility or just recognizing it and making it happen, I don't know.

I also don't know what she'd say if I whispered to her that I see her as my personal armadillo. Big on the metaphors, she's not—Jo likes it straightforward, cut-and-dry. That's her phrase, "cut-and-dry". I'm not sure what the fuck it means, literally, like where it comes from, which is pretty ironic, if you think about it. I think it refers to leather, which I tried to have an ideological thing about, but it only lasted a week. Hey, I tried. But yeah, my whole habit of saying one thing to mean something else—it's caused its fair share of problems. Especially because I only use it when I'm not sure how to say the thing right out—otherwise, I'm as straightforward as, well…I don't know. Something straight. Ask me and I'll fucking tell you, no two ways about it.

The fact that there is occasionally something to tell, something specific that provoked my name said in _that_ tone of voice, stern and authoritarian, well, that's caused its share of problems, too. I am not, actually, a cheater by nature—not by my own definition. Under severe duress, yeah, it's happened, and for a while it was kind of a habit—my fucked-up way of trying to control at least something while the world fell apart—but that's something else. Of course, matching definitions with the people around you is another story. I have been told, on numerous occasions, not to "toy with semantics"—thank you, Harvard—but I _don't_. In my mind, there are certain things that you give only to the person you're with, and when you give those things to someone else, bam, you're cheating. But a kiss? Please. You know, when we get judged by you-know-who, if you believe that crap, which sometimes I do, we get held accountable for all the things we _didn't_ try. April taught me that. Okay, so maybe her own devotion to that creed got a little out of hand, but that doesn't mean the idea's wrong. I don't believe that, that just because something can go bad or has gone a little bad, that, you know, it's totally bad through and through. Black hats and white hats and that shit. I used to think so, to think life was all checkerboard like that, right and wrong. Like Roger did, which is why he and I had some wicked fights for a while, because when you're stuck thinking like that, and somebody else also has that philosophy, but not all of your little squares match up—watch the fuck out, because you'll go at it till you draw blood.

I like to think that we both grew up a little. I understand Jo's work a little better now, when she takes the time to put it into real English for me—that there are shades and degrees and variables and so on, that it's not just reducible to yes or no. It's certainly the only way I could find space in my life to let everybody's favorite yuppie back in. God bless that little fucker—but I really did always like Benny, and eventually it gets to the point where you're just like, what good am I doing anybody by holding on to this, like, pseudo-righteous anger? Sometimes, maybe, it's warranted, but everybody's got to decide that sort of shit on their own, and I think usually, it's better to give people the benefit of the doubt. Because what if you never got the chance again? You'd feel like a dumb shit, nine times out of ten. Life's too short.

The sax lady, as we call her, has finished her scales and has moved on to that slow, jazzy version of "Paper Moon" that she plays _every_ night, and the rain has picked up a little bit, but not enough to cover the occasional whoosh of a car. We have migrated even closer together, real slow-dance-y, not like when you were a kid and you put your hands on the boy's shoulders and straightened your arms, but like those old films, where it's more like a hug that you decide you don't want to end. Sax lady hits a flat note and I want to wince, but Jo just gives a soft laugh. Real soft, but from deep down, so that I can actually feel it where my stomach touches her stomach. Our soft parts, all pressed together, like we're two armadillos, and my back protects her and her back protects me. Like we're uncurled just for each other, even though that's not quite true—it's just that we learn how to do it, every time, all over again, with each other. It's really awfully nice, having your own armadillo, especially in a city like New York. You know?


End file.
